Fallout: Vendetta
by Irish36
Summary: Chris Redding and the rest of the dwellers of Vault 118 are forced out into the wastes of post-apocalyptia. They are met by slavers, who take half the vault for themselves and kill the others. Can Chris rescue them? Contains corse language and violence.
1. Chapter 1

Prologue: A Brief History Lesson

In the early morning hours of Saturday, October 23rd, 2077, the world ended. The once idyllic and "perfect" society of the early 21st century had finally unraveled after years of building tensions, nation wide paranoia of Communism, and ever growing arsenals. Despite all the science and advanced technologies that had been developed over the years to improve the quality of life for years to come, nothing could prepare humanity for the end it was so blindly running towards. What follows is a condensed timeline of what happened in the years leading up to Armageddon.

First, in 2052, went the oil supplies in the Middle East, throwing the region into a long and costly war with a weakened European Commonwealth. This war wound up costing both sides many lives and led to the dissolution of the United Nations. After the UN ceased to exist, many of the world's poorer, underdeveloped, countries went bankrupt and dissolved into civil unrest and anarchy

In the year 2053, came the plague. A disease of unknown origin, some said it was a government experiment gone awry others the communists, began killing thousands of people worldwide. Medical technology became the focus of the scientific community and a means to immunize the population was found. These events were followed by the total, thermo-nuclear, destruction of Tel Aviv by terrorists in 2054. This lead to the United States government closing their borders and enacting Project Safehouse, which allocated the funds necessary for the construction of massive bomb shelters nation wide dubbed "Vaults", a temporary comfort for a nation sliding down a slippery slope.

With the year 2060, came the end of the oil wars as the Middle East had finally run dry and the European Commonwealth broke into many nation states squabbling over, presumably, the last remaining natural resources in the eastern hemisphere.

Six years later, China invades Alaska over what many believe to be the last deposits of oil in the known world. This was met by a fierce counter attack by the American Armed forces and a bitter, decade long, struggle for the frozen arctic tundra, which led to the annexation of our neighbor to the north, Canada. Shortly after acquiring the Canadian territory, Alaska was reclaimed in early 2077.

Months went by, America the victor in one of the costliest wars in the nation's history thought things were beginning to look up, but that was until October 22nd. It was on that fateful day, the sky was filled with nuclear missiles and fire rained from the heavens, a true scene out of the book of Revelations. No one knows who started the war, but after two hours of nuclear devastation, no one cared. This was not out of apathy, but because there were too few humans left to care.

Now that you have a grasp on the past, lets jump forward a couple hundred years. 270 years have passed since the day fire rained from the heavens, and the world that we once knew is dead and gone. The only thing that remains is its withered and desolate shell. Despite the harsh conditions that now blanket the planet, humanity has prevailed over the nuclear holocaust. This is mainly due to the fact that we are a species notorious for our stubborn nature and an ability to persist that could rival that of the cockroach, but thanks to the Vaults and other modern technologies, a little infrastructure from the old world remains but not enough to return life to normal.

The life of a normal human in this future is bleak and chances of survival are slim at best. They do their best to live day to day above ground or nestled beneath the scorched earth of the wasteland above. Though faced with so much death and adversity, humanity has not given up yet.

For those not fortunate enough to reach a vault or other suitable shelter, they face a life not many would choose freely. Many of the people left above ground were exposed to ungodly amounts of radiation and have become the things of old nightmares, their skin rotting away and hair falling like autumn leaves. They have been dubbed ghouls, as they look like zombies from old horror movies.

For those who survived, every day is a struggle for their very lives, as the wastes are as punishing as they are desolate. The dangers of the wastes are many and can range from such benign things like irradiated water to more pressing matters like raiders raping and pillaging all in their path, slavers taking the younger members of society and women to sell to the highest bidder, or worst case, you would encounter the ravenous Feral Ghouls, that live in the dark places of the wastes or the blood thirsty and violent gangs of "super" mutants who roam the land with a murderous obsession for killing humans.

Under the harsh lands above, many of the vaults continue to operate at peak efficiency and life goes on as per usual, the denizens of the vault just waiting for their head of the vault, or Overseer, to give the all clear to go outside. Other vaults, however, have not been so lucky. Their structures crumbling to pieces and vital systems giving out, the dwellers of these vaults have had to leave their sheltered life and venture forth into the wastes to make a new life in Post-Apocalyptia.

It is in one of these vaults that our story starts. A vault built into a cave in the American heartland, Vault 136 to be exact, houses around three hundred survivors, all craftsmen and other vocational occupations. Little do they know, their lives under the sandy ground are about to be turned upside down and they will have two choices; face the dangers of the wasteland or death in their Vault…

**One: Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire**

On the maintenance level of vault 136, computers and monitoring stations hummed with electricity as they each ran a program vital to the operation of the Vault-Tech facility. Everything from the filtration of water to the cleansing of the air from the concealed, surface side vents, was run by a machine that was close to three centuries old, a fact that did not seem to bother the dwellers of Vault 136 in the slightest.

Two levels above the reactor and maintenance level were the bunks, which housed the descendants of 300 lucky lottery winners from a time when the earth was whole and untarnished by nuclear winter. Each of these people were sound asleep in their quarters, each dreaming their own dreams of a bright and promised future, with the exception of Tom Higgins, the head of the maintenance level.

Tom was sitting at his desk on the maintenance level, frantically scribbling on a piece of paper with a standard issue, Vault-Tech #2 pencil.

"Christ," said the balding man as he just noticed the vault tech logo on the side of the writing utensil "Is there anything they didn't make in this damned place?"

He doubted it, as the standard issue wrist mounted computer (known as a PIP-BOY) he bore on his right arm all the way down to the boxers he wore under his blue jumpsuit which was emblazoned with the numbers 1-3-6 stenciled on the back all bore the Vault-Tech logo. "But surely there had to be some sort of original material in this place," thought Tom, "it's just a matter of finding it."

He decided that he would ponder this question later, as he had more pressing matters at hand. He was pouring over long rolls of sensor data from the internal probes of the nuclear fission generator that gave this facility its power. According to the long rolls of paper, the generator had just recently begun showing signs of over heating, due mostly to one of the three chilling towers that cooled the generator beginning to fail. Tom studied one of these meter long sheaves of paper, which was adorned with a black line-graph that represented power being produced by the generator relative to the heat of the generator's interior workings.

Tom had been doing some math on a scrap piece of paper, and according to his calculations, things were not looking good. If his math was correct, and he sure hoped it wasn't, if the generator's interior temperature spiked at nearly 500 degrees, this would cause a massive meltdown of vital systems, the generator would literally go super nova, destroy the entire complex, and kill the entire population of Vault 136 in the process.

After checking his computations for the tenth time and running it through a computer to get a virtual rending of his information saw that the result remained unchanged. Sighing, he took this piece of paper and walked out of the office, the door closing with a metallic clack, and up the steel staircase that led to the atrium and common area. Tom pressed a button on the frame of a door at the top of the stairs, which opened, quickly with a loud thunk. He walked into the large, cavernous, two level room which served as a public gathering area during the day and saw that the room was empty aside from a lone security officer who sat by himself at a table, smoking a cigarette and drinking a cup of coffee. "Late night there Higgins?" asked the guard as Higgins drew closer.

Higgins knew this man; it was the head of Vault Security Henry Wallace. "You know me Hank," grinned Tom as he walked by, calculations rolled into a scroll in his hand, "Everything has to be ship-shape if I am going to relax."

"Good luck with that," said Wallace, lifting his cup in a mock toast then drinking the watery coffee down to its dregs, "Where you headed? Addressing one of those problems?"

"I need to see the Overseer," replied Tom "Is he awake? It's urgent."

"I think so," said officer Wallace, flicking his cigarette butt into a nearby trash can "But he isn't in a good mood."

"What's wrong now?" asked Higgins as Wallace joined him in ascending another flight of metallic stairs.

"Well, its that damned Roger Thurman again," said Wallace, "He has decided that he is going to make it his life's quest to badger the living hell out of the Overseer to open the Vault and let us out into the open. I wouldn't object if we opened the door and threw him and his small gang of nut-jobs out into the wastes."

Tom sighed heavily. Roger Thurman was a member of a small club that had formed in the recesses of the Vault that believed humanity belonged outside in the wasteland, "Helping restore mother nature instead of sitting on our asses underground," as Thurman had put it so many times.

"Let me guess, he's in there now, hassling the Overseer as we speak. Am I right?" asked Tom.

"Yup," said Higgins as another pair of doors slid apart, the sign above them denoting the area beyond as the Overseer's Office and Quarters, "Thurman went so far as to prepare a speech for the Overseer. I overheard him rehearsing to himself as he walked up there a few hours ago. Sounded like a pretty long filibuster to me."

They had finally reached the door to the overseer's office and they could hear muffled shouts coming through the bulkhead. Wallace slid his identification card through the reader and the door opened. Two men stood in the circular shaped office. The Overseer sat behind his desk, looking as if he had been forced to listen to fingers raking a chalkboard for an hour. He was roughly sixty years old, his head of white hair looked frazzled from what had appeared to be hours of running his fingers through it out of frustration. Roger Thurman stood in the center of the room. The tall, lanky, bespectacled man was red in the face, his long brown hair looking disheveled, the undoubted result of passionate point making and debate. Apparently, the two men had been arguing for quite some time, given the half eaten sandwich that was on the overseer's desk.

The Overseer looked up, Higgins could not tell if it was relief or annoyance on his face at the sight of another person. "If you would please excuse me, Roger, there are more pressing matters at hand," said the Overseer, indicating Higgins and Wallace.

Thurman looked at them and scowled. "Fine," snapped Thurman, "but remember you cannot hold us forever. There will come a day where we shall leave here. Better to have it on peaceful terms than covered in bloodshed."

"I have heard enough," said the Overseer, "Wallace, could you please escort Mr. Thurman to the common area?"

"I will take myself thank you," said Thurman as Wallace approached him. With that, Thurman stomped off down the hallway.

"I'll be getting back to my patrol," said Wallace, "Lord knows what mischief those teenage punks down in the dormitories are up to now."

As Wallace left the room, the Overseer let out a long, low, whistle and leaned back in his chair, massaging his temples.

"Thurman up to his usual hijinks sir?" asked Higgins as he walked closer to the desk.

"Yeah," said the overseer, opening his desk and pulling out a small cylindrical container whose label read, "Buffout", "He is being a royal pain in my ass. Hell, if he keeps this up, I'll probably die out of sheer frustration instead of the usual stroke that is so common in the men of my family."

The Overseer popped three of the small white tablets into his calloused palm and quickly swallowed them both. "I am not sure I can handle any more bad news, Tom. What is it you wish to speak to me about?"

"Sadly, sir, I think it is bad news," said Tom Higgins as he pulled up a chair, sat down, and proceeded to lay it out for the Overseer.

Higgins addressed the points he needed to make very delicately, but still made it a point to underline the importance attached to his findings. He saw the face of the overseer begin to look even more weathered than it had been when Roger Thurman was still in his office. After a half an hour of talking about the decaying life support systems of the Vault, the Overseer looked less than happy. "What you are telling me, Tom," said the Overseer, "is if we do not give the fission reactor a massive overhaul, the Vault's long dependable life support systems are going to fail?"

"No, not just fail," said Tom, "I am talking about a cataclysmic event. The whole vault will become uninhabitable. The amount of radiation released would make the place like Chernobyl. Anything breathing within these walls will die."

The overseer pressed his narrow fingers to his lips, contemplating this on top of all the other problems in the Vault at present. "What would cause the generator to overload exactly? Is there some set circumstance that could trigger it?"

"We are relatively safe, so to speak, if we reduce the power consumption of the vault until the generator is repaired," assured Tom, producing a chart of the power usage in relation to generator output, "If that generator spikes at over 1500 joules, then we are toast. The peak usage of the vault's power is usually around midday, when all the residents are awake and going about their daily tasks. If we could cut the power to certain areas of the vault, it can allow me and the maintenance crew to get our work done without the threat of an overload."

"Cutting power could hamper the efforts of the workers," said the Overseer, "But its necessary in the big picture. Tomorrow I will instruct the head of the power grid to limit usage to the key areas only until you and your men are done."

It was then that the pair heard a noise that made them stop in mid conversation. It sounded like a cough, or a stifled sneeze. Must have been Wallace on his patrol, the man had ungodly loud sneezes and coughs. They turned back from the noise in the corridors and set their plan of action onto paper, ready to be enacted in the morning. Tom got up and shook the beleaguered Overseer's hand, assuring his boss that this plan would work if they did things by the book. Tom Higgins left the office and headed back to his office, just had to get some logistics straightened out for the day ahead.

As he descended the stairs to his office, he saw a square of light on the floor. The door that had been shut when he left was now open. Curious, Tom Higgins walked towards it. When he rounded the corner, he stifled a gasp of shock and horror. Officer Wallace lay on the ground, his head soaking in a pool of his own blood, which had emanated from an orange sized dent in the back of his head. He thought of running, reporting this to the overseer, but another thought went through his head, "What if they are waiting for you at the top of the stairs?"

He noticed a small metal shelving unit on his right, a tool kit sitting on the middle shelf. He took one look at the shelf and then noticed a shadow moving about the room. He had to investigate this. If he left for the upper levels now, regardless of his fears of an assailant waiting for him at the top of the staircase, the assailant would get away and this murder would probably go unsolved or worse, get pinned on him. He took a deep breath, resolute in what he had to do, and quietly opened the toolbox, removing a large monkey wrench from the bottom tray. After testing the weight of the wrench, Tom began to creep towards his open office.

As he stepped over the body of officer Wallace, he edged into the room, his eyes scanning the dimly lit room. There was nobody there, just what appeared to be a schematic lying atop his desk. He got closer to the desk, seeing it was a schematic that showed the layout of Vault 136's power grid. As Tom pondered the meaning of this, a shadow moved from the corner of the office and before Tom could react, he felt a searing pain in the back of his head as what he could only assume to be the late officer Wallace's knight stick made contact with him. Tom Higgins fell to the floor, unconscious.

After a while, Tom came to, his head throbbing terribly. As his vision transitioned from a filmy haze to regular vision, he saw that he was no longer in his office. Instead, he was sitting in a chair located in the control room of the main power hub, two floors below his office in the maintenance level. He saw a man bent over the console, tracing his finger over the diagram of the power lines. He recognized the long hair attached to the head of the thin-bodied man before him. "Thurman?" he asked, making to get up but finding he was bound to the chair by some rubber tubing.

"Good evening Tom," said Thurman as he turned around, a smug grin on his face, "how's the head."

"It was you wasn't it?" asked Tom, his mind remembering all before his blackout, "You killed Wallace didn't you?"

"I did indeed," replied Thurman, his voice eerily calm, "He was an unfortunate casualty in the battle for the revival of Mother Earth. You, however, have the chance to help me do the job Wallace should have done. You are going to help me open the Vault."

"What are you talking about?" asked Tom as he struggled to get free but to no avail.

""I mean I heard you talking to the Overseer," said Thurman, "and you gave me the idea for our escape from this underground prison. I want you to bear witness to the beginning of a new earth."

"You are not seriously considering what I think you are considering are you Roger?" asked Tom his voice ringing with panic and disbelief, "That is suicide."

"No!" shouted Thurman, the madness in his eyes becoming evident; "This is the only way to get us out of here, above ground, and on the path of reviving our world."

"You are going to kill us all, you dumb shit!" shouted Tom, losing patience with the man. He struggled harder against his bonds, but to no avail

"Listen to me," said Tom, taking a deep breath and doing his best to retain a tone of reason, trying to talk the crazed man down, "If you overload the generator, the resulting radiation will kill everybody down here, including yourself."

Thurman walked to a nearby wall that was full of circuit breakers, examining them like a person examined produce at the market, deciding where to start. At the sight of this, Tom finally lost all control. He shouted, his forty two year old voice cracking like a teenager, "You are going to doom us all!"

"No," said Thurman, as he grabbed the long metal switch to the first breaker, "I am going to save us."

With that, he threw every switch one by one, snapping them as he went. Tom couldn't describe it, but he felt a surge of strength course through his arms. With a roar, he flexed outward and snapped the thick rubber tubing. He rushed Thurman from behind and slammed him into the wall. He threw a punch straight at Thurman's jaw, the fist connecting and snapping the head back into the steel of the wall. Thurman collapsed in a heap, unconscious. Tom ran over to the control console and looked at the readouts. All systems were melting down due to the sudden surge in power and the Geiger counter built into his PIP-BOY began to tick. Tom knew that the radiation would continue to climb to fatal levels in a matter of minutes, so he had to do whatever he could to hold it back, give the overseer enough time to get the people out of the vault. Tom acted quickly, flipping switches and entering commands into a nearby wall-mounted computer terminal, sealing all vents and doorways to the maintenance level and creating a temporary containment field. "But how temporary?" he asked himself.

"This is the overseer!" came a voice from the intercom, "What happened down there?"

"This is Higgins down in the reactor room," said Tom, noticing the steadily increasing tick of his Geiger counter, "Thurman's down here, he overloaded the generator, sir."

The overseer swore, "Is there anything that can be done?"

"I have sealed the maintenance level off to the rest of the vault," said Tom, noticing his skin beginning to burn, "You need to get everyone out of here sir."

"What about you?" asked the Overseer, "Is there any way to get you out?"

"No…time…" said Tom, it was getting harder to talk as his vocal cords were searing with pain, "Get…them…outta here."

Higgins couldn't speak any more; it hurt his throat too much. His vision was blurring, but he could see that Thurman was coming around, his hair falling out in large chunks. It didn't matter to him if he got alive anymore; all that mattered to him was that he took care of the son of a bitch that had unleashed hell on the vault before the radiation did. He grabbed one of the snapped off handles to the circuit breakers and staggered over to Thurman, who was now watching in muted horror as the skin melted off his hands. Tom summoned all that remained of his strength and hefted the jagged piece of metal into the air. He brought it down, as Thurman looked him in the face, more falling than stabbing, burying the shaft deep into Thurman's liquefying chest. Then, blackness came over him and nothing more.

**2: A Hearty Welcome To Post Apocalyptia**

The warning klaxons were crying out throughout Vault 136. Their siren song awoke one of the local residents, seventeen year old, Chris Redding from a peaceful slumber. He sat up in his bed, confused. "What the hell is going on?" he murmured, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "This is the Overseer," said a voice over the emergency PA system, "This is a Vault wide emergency! The reactor is melting down, and the resulting radiation surge will be lethal! Everyone is to evacuate immediately! There is not much time, so hurry!"

Dressed in nothing but his standard issue Vault Tech boxers and a white shirt, he ran to the next room and roused his younger sibling, thirteen year old, Sarah Redding. "Sarah!" he shouted, "We have to go, now!"

"What's the matter Chris?" she asked drowsily, brushing her curly blonde hair out of her eyes and slipping on a pair of Vault scrubs over her Vault tech underwear. "The Vault's being evacuated," said Chris, as he grabbed a set of pants from a nearby laundry basket, "We gotta go."

"What? Why?" she asked, her face going from drowsy to alert and confused.

"The Vault's generator is overloading," said Chris, "The whole place is going critical."

"So we're leaving then?" she asked, "Let me get some things."

"No time!" shouted Chris and he grabbed his sister's hand and took off out of their shared dormitory suite and down the rapidly filling steel coated halls, their bare feet slapping against the cold floor.

The corridors of Vault 136 were rapidly filling with its residents as they tried to file out of the Vault and into the entrance. Vault security was doing their best to keep the crowd somewhat orderly, but when the built in Geiger counters in their PIP-BOYs began to go off in a tumultuous cloud of clicks. Chris and Sarah were in the midst of the crowd when this happened and the result was a mass panic. Chris held onto Sarah with a vice like grip and together they fought their way out of the sea of people and into the entryway, where there was more room to spread out.

Vault 136 was built into one of the large cave systems in the region, which meant that the Vault Tech engineers had installed a small road and lighting into the long and winding entrance. Chris and Sarah scrambled with the other Vault dwellers, running for their lives in the dark cave exterior of the vault. Chris and Sarah ran hard and fast, their feet smacking against the paved road to the surface. They rounded a corner and there it was, the entrance to the cave with bright orange light of the sunrise shining into the dark cavern. Chris put on a burst of speed and together he and his sister emerged into the dawn light of the surface. They ran a dozen yards further from the entrance to the cave and stopped, each panting to recover their breath.

Chris looked up, clasping the stitch in his side, and saw the crowd of survivors milling about a few yards away. There were still people running out of the vault when a bright white light shattered the darkness of the cave as the fission reactor went critical. There were screams from the survivors, which were cut off by a loud explosion that rattled the teeth in Chris' head. The light from the cave shot straight up from the ground and into the sky, a pillar of nuclear fire. It was blinding, Chris had to turn his head away from the blast, shielding his sister with his body. The light illuminated the dawn sky, making it look like it was high noon. After a few seconds of light, the sky was back to normal.

After the sky had dimmed, Chris looked back at the entrance of the cave. He saw that the top of the entire cave system had been blown off; creating a canyon out of the cave system, which was aglow with radiation. He saw charred bodies scattered throughout the former entrance to the cave; apparently not everyone had made it out alive. Chris was in shock. What had happened? Why had it happened? What would they do now? These were just a few of the many questions that were swirling through his mind but there was one that he felt held the most importance, "Where is the Overseer?"

Chris scanned the crowd of survivors, all dressed in whatever they had been sleeping in before the blast. He saw a few people he knew; there was Fred Dixon, one of the maintenance staff, Joyce Phillips, an orderly in the medical bay, Harry Cheng, one of the Vault dentists, and a few others. All in all he would have to say that out of the three hundred men, women children, young and old that had been in the vault, around one hundred and twenty five had made it out alive. But their leader, the Overseer, was nowhere in sight. Then he heard his name, seemingly coming from somewhere else, it grew louder as it was repeated until finally he was back to reality.

"Chris," it was Sarah, she was coming out of the shock of what just happened. "What…what are we going to do now?"

"I'm not sure sis," said Chris looking his sister in the eye, "we will think of something."

"But we have no home, no refuge," she continued, her voice hinting that she was on the verge of hysterics, "Do you know where we are? This is the Wasteland! This is the literal definition of Hell on Earth! We're not going to last two weeks out here!"

"Sarah," said Chris reassuringly, "We are going to think of something."

"You won't leave me right?" she asked, the fear in her voice prominent, "We are a family, we have to stick together."

"That's right," said Chris as he hugged his sister reassuringly, "I'll protect you. Don't you worry, everything will be alright."

"And indeed it will," said a loud gruff voice from behind him.

Chris spun around and saw a man standing behind him with around thirty others at his back. All of them were dressed in the oddest of clothing, everything ranging from old military armor to makeshift body plates made from the ruins of the wastes and they had hairstyles to match their unconventional clothing. Chris noticed that all of the men were armed. This was a good sign, or was it?

"Who is in charge around here?" asked the man at the front. He was a gruff looking individual; his meaty face was adorned with a black tribal tattoo that covered his right eye and covered by a gray scrub beard and a thin film of soot and dirt.

There was silence. Most of the Vault dwellers were still in shock from their traumatic exodus from underground and had not the strength to answer this man. "Who is in charge here?" he asked again, his men fanning out from behind him and beginning to file through the crowd of survivors, giving them each the once over, "Is someone going to answer me or am I going to have to appoint a leader here?"

"I am in charge," shouted a voice from behind Chris. He turned and saw the Overseer emerging from the crowd, his jumpsuit torn and charred from attempting to get as many of the people out of the vault as possible, "I am the Overseer of this vault. To whom am I speaking?"

"Mr. Overseer," said the gruff man, "My name is Lieutenant Jonas Keeler, I offer you a warm and hearty welcome to Post-Apocalyptia and a proposition for your consideration…Well its more of an offer you can't refuse."

Chris noticed that some of the men that were milling about the survivors had marked the hands of certain individuals, mostly fit individuals and younger women, with charred sticks, drawing a large letter "X" on the back of their hands.

"We are going to offer a select few of you new lives, a roof over your head, a warm meal every day, and a purpose out here in the wasteland. Believe me, this is a better deal than what you could normally get out here, because I am sure this is a lesson you all will learn very quickly and that is the Wastes are a cruel and unforgiving mistress."

"So you are taking some of us away, is that it?" asked the Overseer, "Well, I am going to have to respectfully decline your offer."

"Nobody declines an offer from the Lieutenant!" shouted one of the followers from behind Jonas, who silenced her with a flick of his wrist.

"These people are my responsibility, and that is the way it shall stay," said the Overseer, raising his chin in defiance.

Keeler chuckled, "I respect your loyalty to your people, Overseer. It is a rare and admirable trait in such desperate times, but I am afraid that my terms are non-negotiable."

Before the Overseer could protest, Jonas had taken the sawn off shotgun from his belt and stuck it in the Overseer's stomach. He pulled the trigger, not even wincing when flecks of blood and gore splashed onto his face. There was a cry of horror from the survivors as they watched their leader drop to his knees, holding his intestines in his hands, dying a slow miserable death. He looked up at Chris and tried to say something, but no words came from his mouth. Sarah buried her face in her brother's chest, stifling a sob and looking away from the corpse.

Jonas waved his gun in a semi circle at the crowd of frightened vault dwellers, "Ok residents of…" he kicked the body of the overseer onto its stomach, reading the 136 on the back, "Vault 136, those lucky few of you who have an X on your hand will be coming with us. As for the rest of you, if you will gather over there by my friend with the vibrant green mow hawk, you will be sorted out. As you have now seen what happens to the people who say no to us, so Id be a sport and cooperate."

Chris looked over and saw the man in question, the green spiked hairdo setting him apart from the others. It was then Chris felt a hard tug at his arm. One member of the raiding party had taken Sarah by the arm and was attempting to drag her away. "Chris!" she shouted as her hand slipped from her brother's and she was dragged kicking and screaming off with the others.

"Hey!" shouted Chris, "She didn't have an X! She stays with me!"

"Sorry kid," said Jonas, eyeing Sarah's slender frame greedily, "Last minute addition. She should consider herself lucky."

"What the--," said Chris in disbelief, "No! You can't do this!"

"Them's the breaks, kid," said Jonas as a struggling Sarah was dragged over to him, "Get used to it."

"You mother fucker!" shouted Chris and as Jonas was ogling his sister, grabbed a sharp piece of metal from the ground and slashed at the raider's face.

Jonas winced as the metal sliced through his face, two of the raiders securing a struggling Chris.

Jonas felt his wound with his hand, not a deep cut but just enough to draw a steady flow of blood. "You got balls kid," said Jonas as he examined the jagged piece of metal and threw it aside, "I think you are the only person in a long while to lay a hand on me and for that, I think you get special treatment. Well better than the rest of your Vault anyway."

"String him up!"

With those words, the raiders restraining Chris dragged him away, close to where the other Vault residents were being lined up against a nearby wall. The raiders took a length of rotted rope and through it through the boughs of a nearby dead tree. They bound Chris' arms to his side with the knotted rope and hoisted him up until his feet were five feet above the ground. Chris struggled against his restraints as Jonas strode over to where him. "You get to witness what happens to those who roll over and take it out here in the Wastes."

Chris had noticed that the raiders who had not been with the selected Vault dwellers had lined up, their rifles in hand. "No!" said Chris, in disbelief about what he was sure to come, "You can't do this! I'm sure there is a way to work this out! Take me instead, I'm the one who sliced you up!"

"Work this out?" said Jonas, laughing as the vault dwellers that were lined up against the wall were beginning to piece together their coming end, "Son, this is the Wasteland, THIS how we work out our problems. You can't have any survivors coming along and taking revenge in our line of work. We leave no survivors; It's just good business."

With that, he raised his hand and all the raiders in the firing detail raised their rifles. Chris cried out, hoping against hope that this homicidal maniac before him would change his mind, but his cry was in vain as Jonas had lowered his hand. The collective barking of assault rifles, hunting rifles, shotguns, and handguns filled the air, a terrible cacophony of death. The residents of Vault 136 cried out in pain as bullets from the raider's guns tore through them. It only took a few seconds, but to Chris, watching from on high, it felt like an eternity as all the people he knew and grew up with were butchered like animals.

After the last of the bodies fell, Chris noticed that his face was impeccably dry. He then realized that through the duration of the massacre he hadn't shed a single tear. After a moment of personal examination, he realized why. There was a fire burning in his stomach, a cold and angry feeling that Chris could only define as pure and unadulterated rage. He looked up and saw Jonas sparking up a cigarette. "You know you broke your rule right?" Chris asked, his voice dripping with disdain for this man, "You left me alive, and I swear on the names of those people you just killed and those you are taking, I will find you and I will kill you."

Chris felt a chill run up his spine. Who was this talking through him right now? Chris had never been in a fight before in his life, he was not a killer. Yet as those words seemed to hang in the air, he found certainty in them, in the fact that these people who had died moments ago needed justice. Jonas took a puff off of his cigarette and blew the smoke out, grinning a yellow crooked grin, "Who said anything about you getting out of here?"

"The only reason you didn't die like a dog is because you would have been the one to seek revenge. Which is why I am making an example of you to your captured friends over there. This way they can see what happens when you try to cross me."

"As for your punishment, you are now bound and hanging from a tree. You will either die of dehydration, the local animal life that will be drawn here by the corpses, the Feral Ghouls who are attracted to radioactive craters like you old vault, roving bands of cannibals and Super Mutants or if the winds change, you will probably die a slow death due to radiation poisoning."

"Not to mention," Jonas added indicating the cut on his face with his middle finger, "you ruined my tattoo you dick."

He turned to the rest of the raiders who were looting the bodies for anything they could spare, like boots, watches, jewelry that had been handed down from father to son and mother to daughter. They did not bother with the PIP-BOYs, as they couldn't figure out how to undo the latches on the wrists. Jonas cleared his throat, all the raiders looked up, "Ladies and Gentlemen, shall we get the fuck out of here?"

With that the raiders all turned and left at a quick march, Jonas taking one look back at Chris who was hanging silently from the tree.

Chris watched as the group of prisoners and the firing squad wound their way up the dusty path and off into the distance. He was sure he saw Sarah looking back at where he hung, but the group was too far away to tell. He just hung there and watched as the survivors of the Vault 136 massacre faded into the distance.

He struggled against his bonds furiously, stopping only to regain his quickly fading strength. AS he struggled, the morning slowly turned to the afternoon, and the unrelenting sun beat down on Chris as he fought the rotted, yet sturdy rope. He had screamed his throat raw during the execution and his throbbing vocal chords only added to his discomfort as the unrelenting heat was making him extremely thirsty. He fought the ropes again, gaining a little more wiggle room but not enough to attain freedom.

After a few more hours of struggling, he heard a collective beep that came from his PIP-BOY and the PIP-BOYs on the corpses nearby that had started to smell and attract some rather large flies. That beep meant it was noon. He had to have been hanging here for at least six hours, and he was still nowhere close to being free. He had to keep fighting; every hour he stayed strung up was another hour in which the trail would go cold.

He fought his bonds, struggling more and more against his restraints. He soon realized if he hadn't gotten free by now, he probably wouldn't. What would he do if he got free anyways? He didn't know how to track anything. He didn't even know what way was north. The more he contemplated his demise, the more at peace he became. It was almost like going to sleep. He just had to relax and let it take him. "No," said a voice in his head, "You cannot give in. Those people, Sarah, they are all counting on YOU to do something!"

He tried struggling, but dehydration had set in and his muscles were sore from hours of fighting his bonds. He mustered all of his strength and gave one big jerk at the rope with a resounding battle cry. There was a faint pop and the rope snapped. He fell to the earth, smacking the back of his head hard on the ground. Stars erupted before his eyes and the world swam before him. He felt woozy, and drifted in and out of consciousness. The last thing he remembered was a face blotting out the harsh sun, he could not make out the features but he just remembered the words, "Get him on the cart, he's coming with us."

"Great," thought Chris, as he drifted back into the darkness, "What have I gotten myself into now?"


	2. Chapter 2

**3: Caravan of the Damned**

When Chris Came to, he was lying on his back, covered with a thin tarp for warmth. He sat upright, attempting to get his bearings, the back of his head throbbing dully with pain. He was in a small tent, the ceiling maybe eight foot tall whose floor consisted of four old wooden pallets, his bed pad consisting of a flattened refrigerator box. The rest of the tent consisted of a few small folding tables, one adorned with a battery powered lamp, chairs, and another bed pad. He noticed a flickering light coming from outside of the tent, a fire no doubt and shadows moving about the exterior of the canvas tent flickered in the fire's wavering light. He heard voices, laughter, and if he was not mistaken, the sound of music.

Chris got to his feet, intending to investigate his new surroundings, when the flaps to the tent opened and someone came inside. "Ah, you're awake," said a raspy voice, "Good to see you up and about." Chris turned to see who had just walked into the tent, but the sight that greeted him made him retract with horror and shouted in fear at what he saw.

The person who came into the tent was dressed like a man, if one could call him that, wearing a faded bomber jacket and mud covered jeans and boots. Yet he was terribly disfigured, the skin on his face cracked and tinged a sickly green color. He had patches of red hair on his mostly bald skull. Chris remembered seeing something like this in the comics he used to read as a child; this man looked like a corpse, a walking corpse. A zombie. Determined to keep his brains in his skull, he pushed passed the zombie, who looked taken aback at Chris' sudden outburst, and emerged into the camp. Chris froze, his stomach dropping to his feet.

There were more zombies outside, sitting, eating a thick paste from cans that were warming over a fire, brain stew if he had to guess and crowded around an old portable radio. He had gone from being left to die in the wilds to being a prisoner in the caravan of the damned. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and he spun around seeing the red haired ghoul behind him. "Get off me zombie!" Chris shouted, and he shoved the zombie back into the tent. As he turned around he saw the rest of the camp had noticed him and were on their feet, and oddly wielding weapons like long lengths of lead pipe, clubs, batons, or bats wrapped in barbed wire, and battered hunting rifles.

"Zombies don't carry rifles," he thought to himself, noticing that the zombies or whatever they were staring at him with a look that could have been nothing less than disdain, "Come to think of it, they shouldn't be able to talk either. What the hell is going on here?"

"Was that really necessary?" asked the zombie he had pushed, "I mean did you have to use the Zed word? I mean after we went through all that trouble to rescue you and put you up in our camp."

"I…I'm sorry," said Chris, taken aback and deeply confused by what was going on, "I…if you don't mind my asking, where am I and who are you guys?"

"It's okay," said the man/zombie motioning with his hands for his compatriots to lower their weapons, "You must not be from around here. My name is Moe, short for Moses, and this is my trade caravan. As you can see, this is a ghoul run operation and we make deliveries to ghoul friendly settlements out here in the wastes. We are a friend to anyone who isn't a bigot, you aren't one are ya…I didn't catch your name?"

"Oh, my name is Chris Redman and no, I'm not a bigot. Sorry everyone," said Chris, as the rest of the camp went back to what they were doing before his outburst.

"Then you are in good company," said Moe, "Lets get you some food. A lil ghoul cookin' does wonders for the soul."

"So you call yourselves ghouls, huh?" asked Chris, studying the rest of the caravan, "You seem human enough to me."

"Well we are humans, sort of," said Moe, leading Chris over to the fire and offering him a can of food, which turned out to be pork and beans, not brains. "We are just people who were exposed to way too much radiation, and yet retained our humanity, despite some rather obvious physical defects."

"There are other kinds of ghouls in the wastes, they are feral creatures whose brains have been addled by the radiation and as a result they are blood thirsty abominations that attack anything that isn't a feral ghoul. They are essentially the brain eating zombies you were referencing earlier."

"So you guys are different then?" asked Chris, as he used a spoon to stir his food.

"Yeah, I'd like to think we are," said Moe as he too contemplated his own canned food, "Good luck convincing your average wastelander of that. To them we are all related. So, to cut down on the confusion, we just call ourselves Ghouls. It's better than zombies, shufflers, brain-eaters, or any of the other slurs thrown our way. Enough questions, for now, you need to eat. Its good, vintage 200 years, thank god for preservatives."

"Is this safe to eat?" asked Chris, noting his PIP-BOY's Geiger counter tick extremely slow, indicating trace amounts of radiation.

"Yeah, it is, mostly," said Moe as he pulled an amber bottle from his baggy coat, "we crush up some of this Rad-X and mix it in with the food, it helps cut down on the rads. Radiation is something you just have to get used to out here; it's in just about everything. Believe me, its safer than starving to death."

Chris needed no second bidding. He ate the can of pork and beans hungrily, the thick paste-like material tasting like heaven with a hint of a chalky after taste, which he could only assume to be the anti-radiation pills. "You never answered my question, where are we?"

"Well," said Moe as he withdrew a map from the inside of his coat pocket, "Here is a brief geography lesson."

"The United States, land of the free and home of the brave, is not so any more. The entire nation's worth of old commonwealths has been split into three different zones and they are: The Eastern Wastes, The Midwest, and The West Coast. We are currently here," he said, pointing in the center of a large expanse in the middle of the country, "In what used to be the state of Missouri. The entire Mid-Western zone is one large radioactive dustbowl most of the year, but we are in kind of the "dry season"…no winds," he said noting the look of disbelief on Chris' face, "This lasts for about two months, then the winds kick right up again. But anyways, we found you about ten miles from here, halfway between Steeleville and Springfield. The area is full of caves and caverns, one of which used to house your vault, we think. But that's not important. What is important is that you know where you are and that you keep eating."

Chris continued to tuck into the piping hot can of pork and beans, mulling over what Moe had told him about where they were now. He had been born in the vault, just like his dad, so he had no clue that things would be this bad on the surface. After shoveling a sloppy spoonful of the brown paste into his mouth, he stopped to wipe his mouth on the back of his hand, his can half full, seeking to ask one question that had been bothering him. "How did you guys find me?" he asked as Moe handed him a tin cup of water, which he sipped gingerly noting the taste of Rad-X in it as well.

"Well, to start," said Moe, "we were just breaking camp when a big, white pillar of light shot into the sky. It lit up the whole damn sky for miles. After it had disappeared, me and a few others decided to investigate, you know see if there was anything worth scavenging."

"When we got to where we figured the blast had come from, we saw the smoking crater and a big, steel door sticking out of the ground. You were in one of those vaults weren't you?"

"Yeah," said Chris, the images of his captive sister and the bodies of his fellow vault dwellers coming back in an instantaneous flash, "But keep going, I'll tell you my side of the story once you're done."

"Fair enough," agreed Moe and he sipped from his cup before continuing.

"We found you tied to a tree and thrashing about something awful. Truth be told we were a bit afraid to confront you, we thought you were going feral, so I had my man Shifty shoot you loose."

Chris looked to where the man/zombie had indicated and a zombie with an old scoped rifle sat on a log sipping coffee from an old tin cup. He nodded to Chris and went back to his coffee.

"After Shifty shot you down from that tree we came over and examined the crater. We grabbed some of the irradiated debris and threw it in a lead lined trunk on the back of our wagon, its valuable stuff since we ghouls are healed by radiation."

"Really?" asked Chris, "That's interesting."

"I guess you can say that," murmured Moe, "I think its just plain weird. Anyways, after we looked around some more, we saw the pile of bodies…" he stopped, noting a wince of pain flash across Chris' face, "it was terrible. So we decided to load the apparently only survivor onto our cart and get you back to camp, where we could patch you up."

"Well thank you," said Chris, " I appreciate it. I guess this is the part where I fill you in on my half of the story, eh?"

"If you feel like it," said Moe, taking another steaming bite of pork and beans.

Chris started from the beginning, with the overload of the vault's generator and the chaotic evacuation. He told Moses about how he and Sarah had made it out only moments before the generator went critical and of Jonas Keeler and his band of raiders killing the Overseer. He went on, describing how certain members of the survivors were marked and wrangled like cattle, stopping for a moment when he got to the part about Sarah. He thought about her, somewhere out here in this hell that used to be home to humanity, and what she might be going through. He pushed the unpleasant thoughts out of his mind and continued on. He gave Moe a detailed description of how the Raiders had massacred the survivors they had not rounded up, leaving their bodies to rot in the sun and leaving himself at the mercy of the wastes.

By the time he had finished, what was left of Moe's mouth was hanging open. "Wow," he said, "that is some story. You are lucky to be alive. I've heard of Jonas and his Marauders, that's what everyone calls them; they harvest what they want and purge what they don't. He is definitely bad people and a bona-fide ghoul hater. If we had known he was in the area, you may not have been rescued."

"No offense, but he goes out of his way to kill ghouls. Doesn't matter what time of day or what he is doing. He could be taking a crap and if a ghoul so much as walks into his field of vision, they are dead. A real nutcase if you ask me."

"I figured that out for myself," said Chris as he finished his pork and beans, "So what does he do with the people he "reaps"?"

"Usually, he sells them into slavery," said Moe, "but I heard that he sometimes makes them fight to the death for his amusement, uses them for target practice, or if they are attractive women he adds them to his harem of slave girls."

This last news chilled Chris to the bone. "Your sister was taken right?" asked Moe, "Or is that a sensitive subject?"

"No," said Chris, "I need to find her, get her and the rest of the vault survivors away from those madmen before they are killed for sport or worse."

"Good luck with that," said Moe, "I mean no offense, but it will probably be the stupidest thing you could do, running into the lions den like that. Bravado doesn't get you anything but a bullet to the head out here. You need wit, cunning, and most importantly, you need someone to watch your back. If you try to take their compound, you are going to literally be fucking killed."

"You don't understand," said Chris, "I am all the hope they have now. I'm all the hope Sarah has. If I let them get swallowed up by the wastes, I couldn't live with myself knowing that I was free and could have done something about it. I wish my dad were here to give me some advice, now he was a brave man."

"I was just about to ask," said Moe throwing his spent can of food into the fire, "I don't think I heard you mention your parents at least once in your whole story. Did they make it out before the blast or were they still in there when the generator…you know, went critical?"

"No, they died a long time ago," said Chris, realizing that this was the first time in a long time he had ever spoken about his parents, "My dad was one of the engineers who worked on the maintenance level, just tinkering with equipment and stuff. Then one day a fire broke out and threatened to take the whole vault with it. I was only eight at the time and Sarah was little more than a toddler, we had no idea what was going on, but I remember my mom pacing and pacing, waiting for my dad to come back to the room. The only problem was that he never did."

"My dad volunteered to stay behind and help fight the fire. He rescued about twelve people from the blaze, and when he went in for the last one, he never came back. So, Mr. Higgins, the head of the maintenance level, made the call to seal the whole level off, let the fire starve itself to death. My dad died a hero; he got his own wing of the vault named after him, his photo on a wall in the common area, the whole shebang. It was hard for everyone in my family, especially for my mom. She had a small addiction to pain killers, I remember my dad once dumped all of our Buffout down the toilet once, and it stopped for a while, or at least until he died. Afterwards, my mom sunk into a deep depression and resorted to drinking and taking more than the recommended dosage of pain killers."

"I remember the day she died vividly. I was ten at the time, and I had noticed my mom had not come back from one of her trips to the bathroom. I walked in and found her seizing on the floor, a bottle of Buffout lying next to her. I remember calling for help, and my mother taking me by the hand. She told me to be strong for both Sarah, and me because she couldn't anymore. Then she stopped seizing and just lay there. The docs attributed it to my father's death; apparently she had lost the will to live and took her own life."

"Ever since, I've had to look after my sister and raise her. We had help, other parents in the vault would look after us, do family things with us and other stuff, but it wasn't ever the same. So, I decided to make good on my promise to my mom, and I vowed to always be there for my sister. No matter what, I don't care if the road takes me through hell and back, I would walk it without a second thought and if I see Jonas Keeler again, I will make him pay."

As Chris finished telling his story, the last words hanging in the air, he noticed that Shifty and a few of the other Ghouls aside from Moe had stopped to listen to the story. "Wow," said Moe, "If my tear ducts hadn't scabbed over a long time ago, I would probably be crying right now. It's a miracle you are here now. You must have an iron will; I doubt that any other kid in a vault could handle those kinds of things."

"I can handle anything, as long as I make good on my promise," said Chris, "Now you see why I just can't walk away from this."

Moe scratched his head, a few flakes of skin falling to the ground, thinking something through. "You know, I think there is a way we can help you," he said, "We are about a day's walk from a settlement called Steelville. It's a big place full of every kind of person you could think of. There is a man who lives there named Freeman who may be able to help you. Tell ya what, get some sleep, and in the morning we will take you to Steelville and try to find this guy."

"Thanks Moe," said Chris, stifling a yawn. It had been one hell of a day indeed.

"Ok, hit the sack everyone, we leave at first light," ordered Moe, "I want Patches and Red on guard duty tonight. Switch watch after six hours."

With the final announcements, the ghouls and Chris fell about the camp, Chris retiring to his tent and laying down on the bedroll. He closed his eyes and fell straight asleep, telling himself that if he was going to find his sister and the others he had to be well rested.

**4: The Camp**

Sarah Redman and the rest of the vault survivors had come a long way. After they had left the scene of the massacre, they had marched for about thirty minutes when they came upon more raiders waiting for them in a small camp. Sarah had counted around fifty, maybe; she couldn't tell if there were more in the small ghetto of tents. Aside from the cruel and tattooed raiders, there were strange, mutated, pack animals tied to a post in the center of camp. The odd looking horse like creatures, an undoubted result of the mass amounts of radiation still lingering in the wastes, each looked like they had been beaten by their impatient and insensitive masters on more than one occasion. Nearby, tied to another post, there were a few other captives, thought they were obviously locals and not vault dwellers due to the grimy coloration of their skin and the lack of clothing. As they got closer however, Sarah saw that they were little more than walking skeletons, each looking closer to death than Sarah ever wanted to be.

Before Sarah had time to take in the rest of the camp, that horrid man, Jonas Keeler, had ordered the camp be broken down and their new friends be "Processed." The raiders nearest the column of survivors removed long lengths of rope from nearby wagons and tied each vault dweller together, creating crude shackles. The rope scratched and irritated the skin on Sarah's arms, but what was she going to do about it? She had seen what happened to those who resisted, like her brother: left to die, hanging in a tree over the mass grave of their friends. She just closed her eyes and tried to accept what was happening, though that was easier said than done.

After ten minutes, the once sprawling camp had been broken down and just before they had decided to move out, the raiders had put the strongest and tallest of the men they had captured from the vault to work as litter bearers and they hauled the heavier packs and equipment, which had been loaded onto old banquet tables with long lengths of pipe underneath to act as supports and handles. With that, they were on their way, moving at a steady march across the wastes.

They had been on the move since around five in the morning, stopping only once to allow the raiders a lunch break during which one of the raiders had gotten violent with one of the female vault survivors. They had left her crippled body balled up and lying in the dirt, after he was through with her. One of the survivors had tried to help her, but he received a rifle butt to the chin and he fell back in line as their death march continued.

A few hours later and they had come across a suitable place to camp, at the bottom of a large, dusty, basin. As the raiders unloaded their pack animals and other equipment in the scorching sun, tempers began to flare and Jonas had called for a recess to let his people cool down. After a while, they had decided to use their break from setting up camp to get in some physical activity and participate in what they had dubbed Blood Sport. To minimize the risk of losing their profits, the Marauders had erected a large pen made from some ten-foot high chain link fence and pipes salvaged from a nearby home improvement store and had topped it off with razor wire laced through the upper rungs of the fence, creating a makeshift prison yard for their captives. Sarah had felt the razor wire was overkill, as none of the vault survivors had the fight or courage left to attempt an escape.

So Sarah sat, along with the rest of the survivors of the Vault massacre and watched as two teams of four of their captors threw an old foot ball to each other, playing a compact and violent version of the old American past time. The rules were apparently anything goes, just no weapons, and there were ten minute quarters. After forty minutes of straight violence enough time had passed that the sky had turned the inky black of night and the game had to be lit by a large bonfire, the game was winding down. Sarah watched as a big and burly member of a team that had dawned blue headbands upended one of the defending players who was guarding him. The other raider landed flat on his back, writhing in pain while the bigger raider made a spectacular flying catch in the makeshift end zone.

One of the other raiders blew a bone whistle to signal the end of the game, with collective cheers and derogatory slurs being shouted from the winners, losers, and fans. After the cheering had subsided, everyone heard a lingering clapping noise coming from the crowd. Lt. Jonas Keeler was sitting in a moth-eaten, weather damaged, reclining chair with two female raiders sitting in his lap and a bottle of 200-year-old whisky in his hand. "What a show!" he shouted, listing in his chair slightly, "I think a reward is in order. Extra rations for Razor and his team. The rest of you lazy fucks get to work finishing camp."

Razor and his team cheered and old bottles of alcohol were passed around the victorious team's ranks. Sarah watched as an alcohol and adrenaline fueled party began to unfurl outside of their cell. She turned away, walking back to where the rest of the vault survivors huddled together. Her body was aching; her feet were blistered and bruised from their long and hazardous trek across the wastes. She sat and her thoughts drifted back to her brother and how he may still be alive. "The odds of that are slim at best," said a voice in the back of her mind, "He's probably dead; either killed by the elements or the dangers of the wastes."

She did her best to shake off the feeling of dread and loss brought abut by her line of thought, but it stuck with her like a bad dream one hopes to forget yet it lingers in the back of your mind. Suddenly, the gate to their enclosure opened and in stepped three of the biggest members of the winning Blood Sport team and at their rear, a very drunk Razor. "Pick out your prize," said Razor, throwing his empty bottle into the dark with a resounding shattering noise, "Its on the house tonight boys!"

The drunken raiders milled about the enclosure, all the captives whimpering in fear, as they were too exhausted to resist. One of the more muscular raiders grabbed a girl sitting by the fence by the hair and dragged her out. Razor eyed all the girls in the enclosure hungrily, but his wandering gaze settled on Sarah. "You'll do fine," he said, slurring his words and reaching for Sarah.

Sarah retracted in fear, the stench of hard alcohol and sweat emanating from him filling Sarah's nostrils. He made for her arm, but Sarah slid back on the ground avoiding the grab. Razor's second attempt did not miss, as he managed to hook his meaty hands around her thin forearm. Sarah screamed kicking and flailing in an attempt to break her captor's grip before he dragged her off into the night to do lord knows what to her.

Just as Razor was about to drag her out of the pen, Sarah heard a stern voice say, "Leave her be."

Razor looked up from his "prize" and saw Jonas standing behind him, the orange glow from the bonfire giving his face a fearsome appearance.

"I'm just taking my extra rations chief," said Razor as he tried again to drag Sarah out of the pen, "We have plenty of others to sell."

"I said let her go," said Jonas, his voice ringing with silent rage, "she is not for sale."

Razor took another look at Sarah then looked up at Jonas. "No," he said defiantly, "She's coming with me old man."

Sarah saw that Razor had produced a weapon from the small of his back, a long, jagged, straight edge razor that was his namesake. The weapon was coated in dried blood and rust. "Back off," he said waving the blade at Jonas, "Or I will be looking to move up the company ladder."

In the blink of an eye, Jonas Keeler was upon a very startled Razor. Sarah had never seen anyone move with such speed in her life. Despite his age, he moved with unparalleled agility as he knocked away the razor and used his foot to break the larger, more muscled mercenary's knee. Razor roared in pain, dropping to the ground. Sarah, the other Vault refugees, and the few remaining mercs who had entered the pen all watched in stunned silence as Jonas found the discarded blade on the ground, walked over to where his adversary lay writhing on the ground. "Time to put you in your place," he said as he kicked Razor onto his stomach, "At the bottom of the company ladder."

Sarah looked away as Keeler ran the jagged edge of the razor over its previous owner's throat. Razor's blood ran black in the firelight, and he gargled as his life spilled out of him.

As Sarah cowered in fear, she felt a hand come under her chin. It tilted her face upward, and she was looking into the face of her tormentor. "You are coming with me."

Having just witnessed for a second time what happened if you resisted this man, neither Sarah nor the other Vault prisoners decided to revolt. Together she and Jonas Keeler walked through the silent camp, all eyes on them. Sarah drifted, as opposed to walking through the camp. Everything seemed surreal, it might have been the lack of food and sleep, but it was almost as if she was having a very vivid and disturbing dream.

Before she knew it, she was standing in Jonas's tent, which was a massive twenty by ten rectangle of canvas lit by an old gas lantern. There were a few old hospital bed dividers set up to give the illusion of rooms in the spacious tent. "There is a cot on the other side of the dividers there," said Jonas as he pointed to a corner of the tent, "You can sleep there from now on. I'll sleep in my chair here."

Sarah watched him sit in the moth eaten chair he had used to preside over the ultra-violent Blood Sport games. "What are you going to do to me?" asked Sarah apprehensively.

"Nothing," said Jonas as he uncorked his bottle of whisky and took a swig, "and nobody will ever do anything to you under my watch. Now get some sleep."

Sarah stood there for a moment, a mixture of relief and confusion sweeping over her. This was not what she had expected. Jonas looked up from his bottle, "You gonna stand there all night or what?"

Sarah walked back behind the divider and saw an old army cot. This was where she was to sleep, in the bed of a murdering psychopath. "He can't be that bad of a psychopath," she thought, "He won't let anything happen to you, apparently."

Before she could ponder Jonas' reasoning, she had lain down on the cot and passed out. Maybe she would be able to better think in the morning, if she lived until morning.


	3. Chapter 3

**5: The Road to Steeleville**

It was around 4 am according to Chris' PIP-BOY when he was roused by one of his newfound companions. "Wake up," said the scratchy voice of the female ghoul, "We gotta get camp torn down."

Chris looked her in the face, seeing that her black hair had fallen out in small patches. "You must be Patches?" asked Chris as he stretched.

"Yeah, that's me," she said as she opened a trunk that had been brought into the room, "But we'll have time to get to know each other later, come on we gotta get you ready to go."

Upon closer examination, Patches was a girl roughly a year or two older than Chris. She wore a leather vest adorned with pins and a bandolier of rifle rounds over a tan sweater and some matching black cargo pants with duct tape wrapped around the knee. She had pulled out an assortment of clothes for Chris, sizing him up and laying out the appropriate articles of clothing. "These ought to fit," she said throwing him a wad of clothes, "What's your boot size?" she asked as she looked inside the tongue of a pair of black combat boots,

"Eleven?" asked Chris as he stepped out of his scrubs and slid on the baggy cargo pants Patches had thrown him and clasping the belt around his waist.

"Yup, these will work," she said and tossed him the boots, "I'll leave you to getting dressed, but don't take too long, we gotta get moving if we are going to reach Steeleville by nightfall."

Patches picked up the now lighter trunk of clothes and left Chris to dress himself. He slid on the boots over his bare feet, wishing that he had grabbed a pair of socks before he had left the vault, but this was better than traveling the rocky wastes bare footed. He put on the rest of his clothing, which consisted of a gray long sleeved shirt, a black leather jacket, a pair of protective gloves, and a worn rucksack with basic survival gear inside it. He also saw that Patches had given him a hat and a pair of goggles. He assumed that due to the Wasteland's arid climate, dust storms were a big problem for traveling caravans such as this. So, he put on the hat, covering his brown hair from the elements, and slipped the goggles on top of the bill of the hat. Now that he was dressed, he needed to find Moe and figure out what's going on.

Chris stepped out of the tent to find a fresh fire going, a ghoul was brewing a big pot of coffee and tending to a few more cans of food over the fire. He was surprised as to how the camp was almost nonexistent from last night. The only tent left standing was his; everything else had been loaded onto three, dilapidated carts made of whatever had been at hand apparently. Chris stepped out into the middle of the camp, there were ghouls bustling about getting gear stowed away and prepping for the journey ahead. He noticed Moe standing next to perhaps the oddest creature he had seen yet. It looked like a cow from the old alphabet book he had when he was a little child, but it had no hair and a second head growing from its torso. There was one at the head of each cart, Chris asked one of the passing ghouls what they were, and he replied, "Oh those? They are just mutated cattle. We call 'em Brahmin, nothing fancy. I think it means something in another language but hell if I know."

Chris strode over to the two-headed cow that had been loaded down with gear and other trade goods, Moe turning to him as he came forward. "Glad to see you are up and about today, Chris," said Moe, "As you can see, we let you sleep a little while longer than the rest of us…you needed it."

"Thanks," said Chris, "for that and the clothes."

"Not a problem," said Moe, "those are items we can spare. Besides, I couldn't' let you go chasing after Jonas without at least having some sturdy boots on your feet."

Chris looked out on the horizon, noting the pale orange glow of the sun slowly rising into the sky. "That is amazing," said Chris, who was himself surprised that he had taken the time to watch a sunrise.

"Oh, yeah," said Moe, "This is your first sunrise isn't it?"

"Yeah," said Chris, "I never imagined it would look this beautiful."

"I hear that," said Moe, "I have lived in the wastes all my life, and I always watch the sunrise."

"Wouldn't it get a little old after a while?" asked Chris.

"No, not when you live out here it don't," said Moe, "I have learned from experience that every day can be your last sunrise, so you had better enjoy it while it lasts."

Together, Chris and his newfound ghoul companion watched the sun rise slowly into the sky.

After the sun had risen, the camp had been squared away onto the carts and the caravan headed out along the remnants of an old road towards Steeleville. Moe had their quartermaster give Chris a canteen full of the Rad-X laced water, which he put in a pouch on the side of his rucksack. The road wound its way through remnants of dead forests, large fields of boulders and across the flat, scrublands that were the Mid-western Wastes. As they walked, Chris got to know some of his fellow wasteland wanderers. He spent plenty of time explaining the intricacies of life in the vault to Patches, who seemed taken by the idea of what she called, "An underground civilization".

Then there was Shifty, Chris never spoke to him as he had taken point of the caravan, but according to Patches and other members of the party, he had once been a mercenary for something called Talon Company. Apparently he was the best mercenary in the area known as the Capitol Wastes, but after he fell into a pool of high rads water and underwent the ghoulification process, the other four people in his unit had planned to kill him. According to legend, after they tried to jump him, he killed all of his assailants without any of them getting a shot off.

After the sun had risen, Chris began to feel sweat condense on his brow. The heat of the mid-day sun beat down on the caravan without mercy, making the leather jacket Chris wore feel all the more stifling. The cool, stale, air of the climate controlled vault that Chris had lived in and taken for granted all those years ago, seemed like paradise when compared to the brutal climate of the wastes. Chris withdrew the canteen from his pouch and unscrewed the top. He took a swig, the water tasting faintly of chlorine. It was cool, but not cold. Just shy of perfect, but Chris figured that perfect was a concept that had vanished with the olden days.

They had been traveling for four hours when Shifty raised his hand, signaling the caravan to stop. Chris and Patches were in the middle of the caravan when the cart they were behind slowed to a halt. The Brahmin being led by the Ghoul Chris had come to know as Rex slowed to a stop. "What's up?" asked Chris, looking around. "There in the distance," said Rex pointing near a large rock that jutted out of the ground like the fin on a fish, "there's a ruined caravan. You can see the carrion birds circling."

Sure enough Chris could see the large sized birds flying in a large lazy oval over the area. Chris looked back to the front of the caravan and saw that Moe and Shifty were deep in conversation. Finally, Moe mounted the lead cart and shouted, "Ok, we are sending a scaving team to go see what they can find. Who wants to go?"

"I'll go," volunteered a ghoul at the front of the line.

"Ok, so Grease is going," shouted Moe, "Who wants to go with him?"

"We'll go!" shouted Patches as she raised her hand.

"We?" asked Chris

"You need to experience life in the wastes for yourself," said Patches as she recovered her rifle from the cart, "and the only way to survive is to scavenge whatever ruins you come across. If someone else isn't using it, you should be if you want to live. Got it?"

"Yeah," replied Chris, surprised at how comfortable he was with the prospect of looting.

"Ok, so the party consists of Grease, Patches, and our new friend Chris," said Moe, "Grease, you know the rendezvous?"

"Sure do boss," said Grease as he checked the action on his pistol, "We'll see you there."

"I'll go with 'em boss, keep an eye on the Smooth-Skin," said Shifty, "Rex, take point."

"Fine," said Moe, as Rex came to the front of the line, "We'll see you at the crossroads in a few hours. Now get moving."

With that, Shifty, Chris, Patches, and Grease all set out towards the boulder. Grease had a small handcart that had been outfitted with all-terrain tires, bringing up the rear as Chris and Patches took up a position behind Shifty, who walked briskly. Chris wiped his coat sleeve across his brow. The wasteland may have beautiful sunrises, but the midday sun was almost unbearable. This, along with stripping the dead of their valuables was just something he had to adapt to. He turned to Patches, "What did Shifty mean when he called me a smooth skin?"

"Its another name for a human," said Patches, "Don't worry, it's not a bad thing...well most of the time it isn't bad."

They approached the rock in silence, Shifty scanning their surroundings for any signs of danger. They were only a few yards away from the rock when Chris saw that the ground was crawling with these large vulture-like birds. Shifty fired his rifle into the air and the birds scattered in a large cloud of black feathers and loud squawks. As the birds fled, it became apparent as to why they were here.

A Brahmin stood there, minding its own business, nibbling on some dead grass; its owner was in worse shape however. The trader, or at least that's what Shifty said he was, had been stripped of his clothes, which lay in a pile not far away. The body looked like it had been set upon by a pack of rabid dogs, the face having been mauled almost beyond recognition and showing other signs of gorging. "Cannibals," said Shifty, "Great."

"Wait," said Chris as Grease and Patches set about inspecting the goods on the Brahmin, "You mean people did this?"

"Yeah," answered Shifty as he worked the bolt action on his rifle, "if it had been anything else the Brahmin would have been killed too. What's worse is that they are still around. Get that stuff into the cart, pronto."

Chris headed Shifty's advice and quickly set about unloading the pack animal. He found a small wooden box and opened it, inside the case was covered by red velvet, but it was not the interior that interested him. He found a revolver, its pristine blue-metal finish glinting in the sun, with a small box of ammunition sitting in an indentation of the velvet. "Wow," said Patches as she grabbed a mesh bag from the mound of goods on the animal's back, "Is that a .44? Nice gun."

"Should I put it in the cart?" asked Chris, feeling the cold steel beneath his fingers and noticing that .44 MAGNUM had been tooled along the barrel.

"Nah," replied Patches, as Chris snapped the wood box shut, "You are going to need that eventually. Moe will understand. You ever shoot one of those before?"

"No," replied Chris, "They didn't allow anyone but security to have guns in the vault."

"Well all you need to know is that gun is a single action," said Patches as she looked through a sack on the side of the Brahmin, "pull back on the hammer to cock it. When shooting the best thing to do is use a two handed grip for accuracy and stability, also aim for center mass, better chance to hit that way. Got it?"

"Yeah," said Chris taking another look at his new weapon.

"Good, now help me load this rug will you?"

It was then after they had loaded the rug and most of the other valuables into the cart, that Chris saw, out of the corner of his eye, a glint on the hilltop near the rock. He looked up to where the flash was but saw nothing. He remembered what Shifty had said, "…They are still around."

Chris walked over by the big rock and stood with his back against it. He opened the box again and took the gun out. The smooth, finished, wood handle felt good in his palm as he tested its weight; heavy, but light enough that he could probably shoot it one handed like the cowboys in the old holo-tapes used to do.

Just before he began to load a bullet into the gun, he looked up and saw that Shifty had his rifle sighted right at him. "Whoa!" exclaimed Chris, but he was cut off by Shifty's own exclamation.

"Down, now!"

Chris, not being one to argue with a loaded gun dove forward as Shifty pulled the trigger. There was a bang, followed by a scream of surprise from Patches as Chris expected to feel a searing pain course through his body, but was surprised when he felt none. He looked back to where he had been standing and saw a man, covered in tribal body paint, nude from the waist up, suspended from a rope. The man looked to be wearing pants made from human skin and his body was covered in strange tattoos and scars. Apparently he had been slowly and silently repelling, inverted, towards the spot where Chris had been standing. Chris noted his intentions were hostile from the large skinning knife he saw on the ground. Shifty's bullet had killed him instantly, leaving a gaping hole where his face had been, a lucky break for Chris but not so for the sneaky cannibal.

"Get the shit!" shouted Shifty as he worked the action on his rifle, "we are leaving now!"

Chris stared in horror at the blood and gore that had covered the rock where the body of the cannibal swung sickly in the breeze. "Get up! Move!" shouted Shifty.

As Chris got up, he saw another savage, this one wielding a hatchet fashioned out of scrap metal and what appeared to be a human femur, emerge from the brush and run right at Shifty. "Look out!" shouted Chris pointing out the assailant.

Shifty turned, but it was too late, the savage had his weapon raised, ready to cleave Shifty's head in half. There was a loud crack and the savage's head burst like a fresh melon. Chris turned and saw Grease aiming his smoking gun over Shifty's shoulder. "We gotta go!" he shouted pointing behind Shifty, "There are more of them! Leave the cart Move! Move! Move!"

Chris snatched up the finished, wooden box and ran with it in his left and his empty pistol in his right. Grease and Patches were just behind them. Chris chanced a glance back at them and saw six more cannibals running down the nearby hillside and charging through the scrub brush. One of them was twirling some kind of a tribal weapon over his head, a long piece of twine with two rocks on the ends. He threw the bolo and it spiraled through the air, wrapping around Grease's legs, tripping him and sending him face first into the sandy dirt.

"Grease!" shouted Patches as she looked back at their fallen companion, yet did not break stride.

Grease crawled a few feet, kicking the snare loose and the moment he tried to get to his feet, a cannibal was upon him. The savage was quickly followed by more of them as they piled onto the poor ghoul. Apparently these cannibals did not care if their meat was irradiated or not as Chris and the others could see them tearing into him. They heard Grease scream a terrible scream, one rife with pain and shock. All they could do was keep moving, as the cannibals would soon discover that ghoul meat doesn't taste very good.

Chris kept running, though when he looked back, he saw all the cannibals had turned their attention to the easier meal. The resulting feeding frenzy was atrocious, and Chris could not watch, so he turned his attention back to following Shifty and Patches who were now slowing from a sprint to a steady gait. They jumped down into a dry streambed and after a few more minutes of following the winding path, they made a sharp left, ducking through a thicket of burnt out trees. Chris looked behind him, the cannibals far behind and out of sight. The trio came to a stop, Shifty climbing to the top of a nearby bluff to see if they had been followed, leaving Chris and Patches doubled over and panting with exertion.

Chris bent over, wincing in pain, a rock had gotten into his boot and had cut his foot open. He sat down and removed the boot, blood having already soaked into the boot's insole, to find that there was a four-inch gash in the bottom of his foot. "Let me look at that for you," said Patches, as she walked over to where Chris sat on the dry earth.

She pulled out a box from her rucksack and withdrew a small syringe that Chris recognized as a medical stimulant or stimpack. She injected the needle into the cut and pressed down on the plunger. Chris winced as the needle entered his foot, but the pain eased as he watched the chemical did its work, sealing the wound with a thin film of medical foam. "I'm sorry about Grease," he said, trying to break the silence and noting her distant expression.

"Don't be," she said as she wrapped his foot in gauze, "he knew the risks and now so do you…There you go."

She had finished bandaging his foot, "Keep that on the wound for the next day to allow the skin to grow back and then you can take it off."

"Thanks," said Chris, sullenly.

"What's wrong?" asked Patches.

"I just feel like if I had made myself more useful then Grease would still be with us," said Chris, not liking the feeling of having another life on his hands on top of the rest of the vault and his sister.

"Hey," said Patches, looking him in the face, "Look this happens. This is what life in the wastes is like. There is a lot of killing and a lot of loss. You have to keep moving, don't get bogged down with the "what ifs" or "I should haves". That's the only way to keep living out here. Remember that."

Chris nodded, he understood. "Great," said Patches as Shifty came back down the hill.

"Are we good?" Patches asked.

"Yeah," said Shifty as he examined Chris' foot, "You goin to be ok smooth-skin?"

Chris slid his boot back on and tied the laces tight. "I think so," he replied.

"Good," said Shifty, "Because we're traveling at one speed, and that one is my speed. Anyone who can't keep up has the choice of being left behind or shot. Got it?"

"Yeah," said Chris, a chill running down his spine. Shifty really was the hard-ass that the caravan had made him out to be.

"Then we are moving out now," said Shifty, "Get a drink if you can from your canteens, because we are a few hours from the crossroads and we are not making any stops."

So, after they took a few sips from their canteens, they headed out, falling in line at a quick jog, following Shifty, Chris determined not to be left behind.

**6: Steeleville City Limits**

After two hours of walking, during which Chris had removed the ammo from the wooden case, which he stored in his rucksack, loaded his revolver and stuck it in his belt, the scaving party arrived at a flat plain with two dirt roads intersecting in the middle. The crossroads at last. "Where are the others?" asked Chris, "Aren't we supposed to meet them here?"

"They'll be along shortly," said Shifty as he lit up a cigarette that smelled strongly of turpentine, "old Moses knows how to drive a caravan. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled."

"It would be stupid for some raiders to try and stick us up out here, as we could see them coming a mile a way, but we still need to be careful."

So the three of them spread out each keeping watch in one direction. Patches and Chris sat on the burnt out body of what once was a luxury sedan that had stalled out at this intersection long ago, its frame stripped bare by people in need of parts or scrap metal. They passed the time with idle chat while Shifty scanned the horizon, keeping his eyes open for anything threatening or dangerous. They soon saw a black dot on the horizon, and after a few minutes they saw it was the caravan, right on time.

As Moe and the others approached, Chris could see a look of concern on the face of the Ghoul leader. "Where's Grease? Where's the haul?" he asked as the caravan ground to a halt in the crossroads.

"We got jumped by cannibals," said Patches, "Grease didn't make it. We had to leave the cart and the loot."

"So you mean we didn't get anything off of that caravan?" asked Moe, running his hand across his face.

"No, we got one thing," said Chris standing up, "This."

He held out the magnum to Moe who looked at it. "This is a nice gun," he said, "you could probably use it more than us. We have plenty of stuff anyway. Talk to Booker by the last wagon, he can get you a holster for this."

"Thanks Moe," said Chris as he stuck the pistol back into his belt and went to look for Booker.

"Ok, lets keep moving," said Moe, "Shifty you are back on point." With that, the caravan moved on, only a few miles out from Steeleville.

The road to Steeleville mainly followed an old stretch of highway, the long line of wagons, ghouls, and the solitary human in their ranks moving along the overpasses and flyover ramps of a forgotten age. They had to tread carefully as some sections of the road were structurally unsound, with exposed rebar and chunks of cement missing from the bridges. Chris noted the abandoned houses and small shantytowns that dotted the landscape, seeing firsthand the ruins of humanity. He saw smoke rising from some chimneys of the supposedly abandoned houses, a sign of life in an otherwise dead land. Humanity had not disappeared, like they had told him in the vault, he had that much figured out already. What had disappeared was the infrastructure of law and order and it had been replaced with a more simple law system: the gun.

If the fact that the entire caravan, himself now included, were armed, he saw signs in front of some houses that indicated that trespassers would be shot on sight, some with makeshift watch towers rising into the sky, patrolled by rifle toting sharp shooters.

After they had exited the highway system, they followed a long forgotten blacktop for a few more miles. After coming over the top of a hill, they saw a settlement sprawled out across the dusty wastes, "Welcome to Steeleville," said Patches as she waved a hand, indicating the settlement, "probably the only slice of civilization for another hundred miles. It may not look like much, but it's a good place to stop and rest your bones after a long journey."

Steeleville was built out of the ruins of an old, master-planned, community complete with its own miniature downtown. It had old restaurants, and a Cineplex. Some of the old houses still standing but "improved upon" by their new owners. The wrought iron fence had been reinforced with wood and metal panels, making an effective barricade between the town and the hazards of the wastes. There were guards stationed at intervals along the wall, each looking out over the land with their binoculars, scanning the horizon for raiders, slavers, and the other dregs of modern society. As they approached, the large iron gates, a man who had been sitting inside of a ruined guardhouse came out to greet the caravan.

"Hello there," he said, Chris noticing the assault rifle in his hands, "What's your business in Steeleville?"

"Trade caravan," said Moe, "Just stopping in to do a little business."

"What's his story?" asked the guard, indicating Chris, who now realized he stuck out like a sore thumb as the only human in the midst of a caravan of ghouls.

"He survived an attack by some raiders," said Moe, "I told him he could travel with us until we got here."

"All right," said the Guard, "you can come in. You know the rules, don't steal nothing and don't raise hell or you have to answer to the sheriff and his deputies."

He waved to his companion in the guardhouse and the gates slid open, allowing the caravan entrance to the sprawling city of Steeleville. Moe thanked the man by handing him a few bottle caps from his coat pocket and they proceeded past the gate and into town.

They had reached the center of town, Chris studying his surroundings, taken aback at how different it was. People milled about the dusty, debris-strewn streets, going about their business. To Chris, this was not how he pictured settlements in the wasteland. He had envisioned a lawless collection of refugees all banded together fighting to survive in a living model of that theory proposed by that scientist. Darwin, or whatever he was called, all those centuries ago. Here, it reminded him of life in the vault, just brighter, dirtier, and everybody had a gun strapped to his or her hip.

The caravan came to a stop at the center of town, circling around a fountain that dried up many years ago. "Ok, gang," shouted Moe as he jumped onto the back of a wagon, "Set up here. We are staying for two days. Try to trade for canned goods and other non perishables."

With a murmur of agreement, the ghouls in the caravan and Chris all went about setting up old folding tables and chairs from which to sell their goods. After about an hour of bustling about the fountain, the camp was set up. Chris finished tying a support line to the top of a large canvas tent in which the ghouls of the caravan would keep the goods they traded for when he felt a hand on his shoulder from behind. "You know, for a smooth skin, you aren't bad company," said Patches admiring his work.

"Considering how I have never done this before, I wouldn't count on my work being quality," said Chris giving the knot a hearty tug to test its hold, but instead of holding strong, the knot broke and the tent collapsed with a loud _WHUMP_.

Patches laughed her dry, scratchy, laugh. "Ok, time for you to learn how to pitch a tent. Give me that line there…"

After about another hour, and under Patches' helpful supervision, Chris finally had the tent standing erect. "See," said Patches as she patted her hands clean of dirt, "Not so bad now was it?"

"No," panted Chris, not used to this kind of work in the broiling heat of the wasteland, "Not at all."

Before he could ask what was next, Shifty came over and lit up another of his turpentine cigarettes. "Patches, Moe needs your help unloading some of the cargo from cart one" he said exhaling the pale smoke.

"I'm on it," said Patches, and she walked away, casting a crooked smile back in the direction of Chris.

"As for you, my smooth skinned friend," said Shifty now turning his attention to Chris, "Are going to come with me."

"Where are we going?" asked Chris as he put his sweat stained cap back on.

"To find you someone who can help you find your sister," said Shifty as he walked towards an avenue that was full of people, "The town saloon is this way, if memory serves."

Chris had almost forgotten about his Sister, a fact that drove away his chipper spirits. It was so easy just to lose yourself in life out here, take up this new lifestyle, and move on. Then he remembered his vow, the mass grave that was all that remained of his old life, and felt that fire of conviction burning yet again in his stomach.

Together, Shifty and Chris both wound their way through the seemingly endless maze of people, no easy task as the sheer volume of foot traffic was enough to make you claustrophobic. "Here we are," said Shifty, flicking his cigarette butt away. Chris noticed that some people were shooting odd looks in the direction of Shifty and himself, but if Shifty did not let it bother him, Chris felt he should not pay it any mind either. "This is Tommy's. As good a place as any to get some liquor or information about the wasteland," said Shifty as he took a small .38 caliber pistol from the inside of his jacket, checked to see that it was loaded, and tucked it in the back of his waistband, "It is also the most lawless of the three saloons in town."

"Then why are we going in there?" asked Chris apprehensively, placing his hand on the hilt of his new handgun, the smooth wood of the handle gave him an increased feeling of courage.

"If you want a guy who can show you where the best restaurant is in town, you go to the other two bars," said Shifty, "This is the place where the hardest of explorers and mercenaries hang out. These are the kind of men you want if you are going after somebody the likes of Jonas Keeler."

With that, Chris followed Shifty inside, out of the harsh sun and dusty air of Steelville.


End file.
